By Sam Highley, Editor
The Canberra Brewers club has a long history of publishing a club newsletter. In fact, that history goes back to Issue 1 in 1995, when the club had around 45 members, the meetings were held at the Wig & Pen, and Canberra phone numbers had only progressed to seven digits. The newsletter, called The Ferm (from 'fermentation' for those non-brewers), was produced, printed and, being before the widespread adoption of the internet, mailed in hard-copy to all members.
The first issue was published shortly after the inaugural meeting of the club was held at the Wig & Pen on March 8, 1995. The Executive was comprised of John Hamilton as President, Chris Elworthy as Vice-President, Chris Pittock as Secretary and John Nagle as Treasurer, with Bob Quee, Len Temple-Heard, Myles Parker and Tony Maurer serving as additional committee members. An initial club membership fee of $5 covered the period from March to July 1995, and was used to cover mostly the expense of producing and mailing The Ferm.
The newsletter's of 1995 followed similar themes to today: news, education, beer reviews, gadgets and event information. The second issue of 1995 featured news that the club meetings would move from the Wig & Pen to the Griffin Centre. While Lachie from the Wig & Pen was happy for the club to continue holding meetings at his pub, it was evidently becoming difficult competing with the increasing numbers of regular customers. There was also discussion of a logo competition to design something suitable for the club.
I'm hoping to dig into the newsletter archive a little more in the future, but for now, take a trip yourself through the Newsletter archive. You can also access the archive through the link in the right-hand navigation bar.
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